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50TH. Doctor Who - The Day Of The Doctor

At the Coal Hill School, Shoreditch, Clara receives a call in the office, and at 5:16pm heads off on her motorbike out of London. By the side of the road is the TARDIS, and she rides inside where the Doctor is waiting. Moments later the TARDIS starts moving, but the engines aren't going.

At the Tower of London, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is handed her mobile by Osgood. It is the Doctor. She tells the Doctor that UNIT found the TARDIS in a field are having it brought in. When she hears the sound of the helicopters shg apologises, saying she he had no idea he was inside. The UNIT helicopter takes the TARDIS directly to the scene of crime, and Kate and Osgood meet the Doctor outside the National Gallery in London.

Kate hands the Doctor sealed orders from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I, and tells the Doctor her credentials are inside the gallery. A soldier pulls the cover off a painting, titled 'No more', but also known as 'Gallifrey Falls'. The painting shows the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city. The painting is Time Lord art: it appears as an oil painting, but is also in 3D, seeming to extend backwards in the frame. The Doctor explains it is a slice of real-time, frozen. The painting brings back memories for the Doctor, including one of a regeneration he had tried to forget, a regeneration that fought in the Time War. The painting is from the day the Doctor killed the Time Lords - the last day of the Time War.

During the last day of the Time War Gallifrey was under a vicious attack from the Daleks. A Gallifreyan soldier was sending a message back to the Time Lords to say Arcadia has fallen when he spots a Police Box, and a man approaching him. The man asks for the soldier's gun, and with it leaves a message on a wall - NO MORE.

In the Gallifrey War Room, in the Capitol, the Time Lords see the message the Doctor left for the Daleks. Arcadia has fallen, but the Sky Trenches are still holding around the Capitol. A General is wondering where the Doctor went to when he is told of a security alert in the Time Vaults, in the Omega Arsenal where all the forbidden weapons are kept. All except one have been used against the Daleks. Investigating the General finds the 'Moment' has gone. The Moment is a weapon so powerful the operating system became sentient, and legend says it developed a conscience.

When asked why the Time Lords had never used it the General asks how do you use a weapon of mass destruction when it can judge you? There is only one man who would even try.

Out in the wilds of Gallifrey the War Doctor leaves the TARDIS and finds an old shed where he sends a message to the Time Lords of Gallifrey and the Daleks of Skaro saying he still stay his had no more, and today the war ends. Inside the Doctor tries to activate the Moment. Hearing something the Doctor looks outside, but a female voice tells him there is nothing there. Looking round the Doctor sees a woman - who looks like Rose Tyler - sitting on the Moment. It takes a moment for him to realise that this woman is the interface to the Moment.

The Doctor tells the Moment he intends to end the war. The Moment tells the Doctor that as a punishment, if he kills them all he will survive, something he has not desire to do. The Moment asks the Doctor one question: How many children are there on Gallifrey?

The Moment then opens a window into the Doctor's future to allow him to see what kind of a man he will turn into. They are both surprised when a Fez comes through the portal.

Back at the National Gallery the Doctor opens the letter from Elizabeth I. She has appointed the Doctor as a Curator of the Under-Gallery, and that if any danger should occur he should be summoned. Kate then takes the Doctor and Clara to see the under gallery. Osgood and McGillop follow, before McGillop receives a call and is called elsewhere.

The door to the Under Gallery is a painting of Queen Elizabeth I, standing next to a man who looks like the Doctor's Tenth regeneration.

In England, 1562, the tenth Doctor is spending time with Queen Elizabeth I, and even shows her round the TARDIS. During a picnic the Doctor proposes, and the Elizabeth accepts. The Doctor accuses Elizabeth of being a Zygon, a shape-shifting alien, after saying the real Elizabeth would not accept a marriage proposal so quickly. The only slight problem is that the Elizabeth is the real Elizabeth - it is the horse that is the Zygon.

The Doctor and Elizabeth run from the Zygon. For a moment they go separate ways in a forest. Hearing her cries the Doctor finds Elizabeth lying on the ground, before a second Queen appears. The Doctor pushes both Queens aside as a time fissure opens up... and a fez appears.

In the National Gallery Kate opens the door to the Under Gallery. Inside are statues covered by sheets, and the floor is covered in a thick layer of dust and gravel. The Doctor is curious about the stone dust, and asks Osgood to analyse it. Kate reminds Osgood to use her inhaler and then leads the Doctor and Clara into the real Under Gallery. On the past the works of art left by Queen Elizabeth I they pass by a Fez, and the Doctor cannot resist and has to try it on.

Kate leads them into another room where there are more 3D paintings. The biggest painting is of a desert, and there is glass over the floor. The strange thing is the glass has been broken from inside the paintings. Kate hands the Doctor a tablet showing the painting before it was broken - and the figure inside. As the Doctor is looking around a time fissure opens. The Doctor has faint memories about it, and tests it by throwing the fez through, followed soon afterwards by himself.

The Doctor lands in 1562 where he meets his tenth self, and the two Elizabeths. The fissure opens again, and the tenth Doctor tells the two Elizabeths to run in opposite directions. As they leave each kisses him, and one of them was the Zygon. Through the fissure Clara is able to talk to them, and moments later the War Doctor appears, before soldiers surround them.

The eleventh Doctor tries to talk to Clara, and when she speaks the soldiers are spooked, but they still point their weapons at the Doctors, until one of the Elizabeths appears. She tells the Doctors that she has killed the other Elizabeth, and orders the soldiers to take them to the Tower. Once inside the Tower the eleventh Doctor finds an old nail and starts scratching on one of the walls. The tenth Doctor is more concerned about why they are all together.

In the National Gallery both Osgood and McGillop are analysing the stone dust. There is nothing unusual about it, and nothing is missing. Osgood realises that the Zygons did it to hide themselves. They smashed the statues, hence the dust, and they are hiding underneath the sheets. As she and McGillop try to back away the Zygons emerge from under the sheets.

Kate takes Clara to the Tower of London and down to the Black Archive, an area so secure that staff have their memories wiped each day, including Atkins, who thinks it's his first day despite having worked there for ten years. Kate explains that the Doctor would probably not approve of some of the stuff kept there, and the whole area is TARDIS proofed. Inside is a panel containing picutres of the Doctor and companions from different time periods, including one of Clara from a visit she has yet to make.

The main exhibit, inside a locked cubicle, is Captain Jack Harness's vortex manipulator. The device is useless with out the activation code which the Doctor has always withheld from UNIT. Kate receives a call on her mobile. A UNIT operative has been looking in the Tower, and found the code that the eleventh Doctor had scratched into a wall. He sends a photograph of the code - 1716231163 - to Kate's phone. Outside the cubicle Clara notices Osgood and McGillop, and Kate starts to transform into a Zygon. As the Kate Zygon gives orders to Osgood Clara picks up the vortex manipulator and enters the code, sending her back to 1652.

In the cell in the Tower the war Doctor suggests that he could set up an isolated sonic shift amongst the door's molecules that would destroy the door. The tenth Doctor says that it would take centuries to complete the calculation. The war Doctor doesn't understand why the tenth and eleventh Doctors seem to be so off with him. The Moment tells the war Doctor that the last day of the Time War, the day in which he killed all the Time Lords, which for him hasn't happened yet, is the reason. The war Doctor asks the doctors if they knew how many children there were on Gallifrey. The eleventh Doctor says he can't remember, but the tenth Doctor says there were 2.47 billion. After four hundred years the Doctor forgot, and tried to move on.

The moment then tells the war Doctor that all the Doctors have the same sonic screwdriver. The case may be different, but the software is the same. Meaning that the calculation for the door, started by the war Doctor, and still being calculated by the tenth Doctor's sonic screwdriver, has been completed by the eleventh's. As the eleventh Doctor is congratulating them for being clever the door is opened by Clara, who reveals that it wasn't actually locked. It was a trick by Elizabeth to see what they would do together.

Elizabeth takes the Doctors and Clara back to the Zygons' ship. One of the Zygons 'translates' itself, and a few seconds later appears in one of the 3D paintings that in the future ends up inside the National Gallery where they can escape. When they are alone from Zygons Elizabeth reveals that she is not the Zygon copy but the real Elizabeth. All three Doctors and Clara enter the tenth Doctor's TARDIS. After a few moments for the TARDIS interior to settle itself down to the eleventh Doctor's console room.

In the Black Archive the real Kate, along with the real Osgood and real McGillop, meet their Zygon counterparts. Locked inside Kate orders the arming of a nuclear warhead that would destroy the Zygons, and London. The Doctor, through a space time telegraph left to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, talks to Kate and asks her to reconsider. The TARDIS cannot land in the Black Archive, but the Doctors have a Zygon translator. They can project themselves in to a painting, and if one was placed inside the Black Archive (a short phone call to McGillop earlier in the day to get him to move the painting) they could emerge inside the Black Archive.

The Doctors use their sonic screwdrivers to activate the Black Archive memory wiping technology, and so for a few moments no-one can remember if they are Zygon or Human. Both Kates immediately order the nuclear countdown to halt. As the tenth and eleventh Doctors try to get the Kates to work things out peacefully Clara talks to the war Doctor. She talks about what the Doctor has told her about the war, and about how he regrets killing all the Time Lords, and the war Doctor tells the Moment he has seen all he needs to, and asks it to take him back to the shed on Gallifrey.

The Moment gives the Doctor a chance, but he still feels he has no choice but to push the button that will kill all Time Lords and Daleks. Before he can two TARDISes appear, along with the tenth and eleventh Doctors. As all three Doctors, with their hands on the button, prepare to activate the Moment the Moment projects scenes of Gallifrey in the shed, showing the battle between the Daleks and the Gallifreyans. It is then the eleventh Doctor says he has had 400 years to think about the day, and another option. Eventually the eleventh Doctor's plan filters back through the earlier regenerations.

The Daleks are constantly firing on Gallifrey. If the last moment could be captured in a 3D painting it would appear as though Gallifrey had disappeared, and the Daleks firing upon it would end up firing on themselves. The Doctors send a message to the Capitol - Gallifrey Stands. They tell the General about their plan to freeze Gallifrey in a stasis cube - and trap them inside a pocket universe. The General tells them calculations would take hundreds of years. The Doctor then reveals that each regeneration has been working on the calculations - all thirteen of them.

Back at the National Gallery the Doctors are having one final meeting whilst looking at the painting - 'No More' or 'Gallifrey Falls'. After the war Doctor and tenth Doctor have left Clara leaves the Doctor alone - and tells him the Curator is looking for him. The Curator, who looks and sounds like an older version of the fourth Doctor, tells the Doctor the real name of the painting - it's one name - 'Gallifrey Falls No More'.

Studios

BBC Roath Lock Studios: Studio 2

BBC Roath Lock Studios: Studio 3

BBC Roath Lock Studios: Studio 4

Notes

Bloopers

No blooper details are available

Notes

This is the Fiftieth Anniversary special of Doctor Who. It was also broadcast in cinemas in 94 countries at the same time. Featuring clips of all previous regenerations it also had a brief shot of future Doctor Peter Capaldi.